Selfish Quotes

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.

Self-honor (self-respect) is in no way selfish.
Before I can give to others,
I must have something to give.
Only by first creating
my own self-esteem and happiness,
do I possess the resources to
contribute anything meaningful to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Please sign up for my Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote email using the form below.
Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Real love is never a selfish emotion.
If you want something from someone -
especially if that something is sex -
what you are feeling is not true love.
True love is about wanting happiness for the person you love -
and not about seeking happiness for yourself.
Fortunately, in most cases our own loving presence
is the greatest gift we can give to a person we love.
Nonetheless, the litmus test of love is knowing
we would choose never to see that person again
if we believed that distance would bring them greater happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure.
I make mistakes, I am out of control
and at times hard to handle.
But if you can't handle me at my worst,
then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
- Marilyn Monroe

Every man must decide whether he will
walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice,
and is never the result of selfishness.
- Napoleon Hill

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu

Personal importance, or taking things personally,
is the maximum expression of selfishness
because we make the assumption that everything is about me.
- don Miguel Ruiz

As selfishness and complaint
pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy
clears and sharpens the vision.
- Helen Keller

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live,
it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

For man with no forgiveness in heart,
life worse punishment than death.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2

He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare

I wept because I had no shoes
until I met a man who had no feet.
- old Persian Proverb

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain

Anger is a killing thing:
it kills the man who angers,
for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -
it takes something from him.
- Louis L'Amour

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

Every man and woman is born into the world
to do something unique and something distinctive;
and if he or she does not do it,
it will never be done.
- Benjamin E. Mays

Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man,
but if you're up there and you can hear me ...
show me the way... show me the way.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)

If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language,
that goes to his heart.
- Nelson Mandela

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar,
and the lightnings blaze around us
it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
- Luther Martin

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate test of a man's conscience
may be his willingness to sacrifice something today
for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Divine Plan is one of Freedom.
The inherent nature of man is ever seeking
to express itself in terms of freedom,
because freedom is the birthright of every living soul.
- Ernest Holmes

During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard

A man's good name is his best monument
- from an old churchyard at Lockerbie, Scotland

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.
- B. C. Forbes

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal
of plain living and high thinking
the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.
Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be,
at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

There is One Infinite Mind,
which of necessity includes all that is,
whether it be the intelligence in man,
the life in the animal,
or the invisible Presence which is God.
- Ernest Holmes

Man does not weave this web of life.
He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web,
he does to himself.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

Well, I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind. Like any man,
I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we,
as a people, will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
- The Buddha

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
devised by the ingenuity of man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences,
in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -
and that is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy

Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inspirational Quotes

All materials & writings are copyright ©. You may read about our disclaimer, our privacy policy,
our copyright policy, terms of use, participation in affiliate programs, and the list of all our websites.